Sunday Driving and Island Hopping

First of all, let me apologize for the length of this post, but I enjoyed our Sunday drive SO much, I wanted to take you along for the ride. Cliff was itching for a road trip. Those are kind of hard to come by on an island, so he got out a map and looked for the closest, easiest option for driving to a neighboring island. Then he charted a course, and we piled into Apollo. We headed up the 330 to the 75 to the 10...



Then took this beautiful bridge...



Out to Miyagi island...then over to Ikei island.




I have to admit, it was a great idea.



The weather had been pretty bad (it's still pretty gray in these pictures) and it felt great to get out on the road.



Too bad we missed these windsurfers doing their thing. They were already putting their boards away.



Interesting looking building here. But we were burning daylight, so we didn't stop to see what it was...



We got back out on the road.



I guess these are to keep us from driving into the water on the sharp turns?











We saw that red bridge ahead and knew we needed to stop.



Even in bad weather, the water is so beautiful here.



Patrick (of course) has to stand on the "plummet to your death" side of the bridge for the picture.



Just gorgeous.







Troy was standing way to close to the edge for my comfort.



Now do you see what I mean?







Speaking of Patrick and plummeting to his death...like a moth to a flame. He saw this rope and couldn't resist. I wasn't actually going to let him demonstrate his ROTC repelling skills, this was all just for the camera.



Then I heard this tractor rumbling down the road behind us. The driver was adorable...she was all smiles for us.



Then we got back on the road to see what else we could see...



Big Time Resort. Love it!



I loved this painted resort map staked into the ground.



And this awesome tree. I want one of these in my yard. Simply Seussical.



We decided to drive around this rural village near the resort and found another lovely old lady pushing a cart...



And another on a bike.



And lots of other snapshots of rural life...



The roads were a little tight for Apollo. There was not a lot of auto traffic here.



But of course, there were vending machines.



We turned down this road to see how close we could get to the water...



We ended up at a dead end just past a private home, so we turned around and went back to a cement dock where several men had parked to fish. We got out and were greeted by quite the welcoming party. This little guy...



Followed by this one. They both had shoelaces wrapped around their necks.



They were SO cute. They loved the Fritos, too.



I don't know if this guy was jealous of the attention the other two were getting, or if he smelled the Fritos, but he crossed the road (hehe) to join the party...



And we were just one donkey short of heading to Bremen Town.



It was a challenge to get Fritos to the rooster without the dog intercepting.



We managed to get him a few, though.



The kids got a kick out of telling him to "sit" in Japanese. He was very well trained.


Chances are, you don't really want to watch four videos-worth of us playing with these animals. But I couldn't decide which videos to include here. They were just so dang cute, and the fact that we were standing by the ocean and were descended upon by a dog, a cat and a rooster was pretty novel. But you might have had to have been there. Patrick said, "Any minute now Momotaro is going to show up and offer us a bowl of noodles." The dynamic between the three was really weird. The rooster picked on the kitten (I just missed filming the rooster on top of the kitten, kicking the life out of it) but the dog terrorized the rooster...so it all seemed to balance out, and they seemed to be happy together.



















We had to leave our new friends and make our way back to our home island. It was getting dark and starting to rain.



And luckily, just when we were feeling parched, there were random, side-of-the-road, vending machines to quench our thirst...



With both hot and cold selections.



Half of us got cans of hot cocoa, and the rest of us got soft drinks. I chose a soda made with the local Okinawan lime-ish fruit that I'm too lazy to look up the spelling of right now.



Crazy, crazy kids. Yes, the boys are spelling "blood."







I must have driven by this weird store a dozen times, but was never a passenger, stopped at this light.



I'm thinking we need to leave here with one of these.



Or maybe this Habu skin? It'd make a great table runner, don't you think?



I'm actually seriously thinking of drum end tables. I'm going to have to come back here and get a better look in the daylight.



In case you didn't guess, these two were "hanging around" outside a pizza place on our ride home. Get it...pizza? gorillas? Yeah...me either.

Thanks for driving with us! It's hard to believe we've been here for two years and STILL haven't seen it all.